by bjenik on 10/2/14, 10:35 PM with 19 comments
by soneca on 10/3/14, 1:52 AM
Underestimating this initial process, taking it for granted, we create the perfect environment to trick ourselves in not doing it. We might tell ourselves that our product is a SaaS for a very specific crown that we can only find online, and there is no street fair or postal office where we can find them. We might tell ourselves that a $100 Facebook Ads campaign is good for testing our assumptions. Or that is not necessary to get really immersed on our industry, because we already know what is wrong and how to solve.
These are all little lies that convince ourselves that our particular context is different. Sure it is. Sure you might not find your customers on the streets, but that is no excuse to not talk online to your customers, be constant presence on a forum, and arrange meetings with those who happens to be on your city.
Most of advice for startups out there are for those who already have some traction, a few employees. So people might skip the skills and attitude necessary to go from 0 to 100 users or customers. This is the perfect lecture for this crowd.
by rajensanghvi on 10/3/14, 2:48 AM
One reason why I think this lecture probably hasn't generated as many comments/upvotes is because there may have been too many topics put into just 1 lecture. I think it may have been more effective if the content was split out into maybe 2 or 3 separate lectures that went into a bit more depth like.. -Building a product (covering the MVP, the decision process around what features are most important and what's not, etc) - Customer Development/talking to users (the environment to interview them, types of questions to ask them, types not to ask,etc) - Growth (different types of growth, what Homejoy focused on at each stage, potential challenges they went through etc)
I recognize that since it's a Stanford course, they are probably capped with the amount of time they have during the semester as well.
by howradical on 10/3/14, 1:41 AM
by xiaoma on 10/4/14, 5:16 AM
1. build product in secret
2. exclusive press launch
3. wait for users
4. buy users
5. give up
They built the product in secret and raised money. They did a huge press launch "beaming" money from PDA to PDA. They waited for users, expecting Palm Pilots to be huge only to see they weren't. They decided to focus on eBay sellers and literally bought users for $20 each. The difference is they didn't give up.
Palantir and Space X also started by building products in secret, press launches and then lengthy sales cycles to get users. Ditto for Apple's "restart" in the late 90s and early 2000s. Maybe a relentless n00b approach is the way to build more transformative products and companies.
by jonalmeida on 10/3/14, 1:18 AM
by jaoued on 10/3/14, 3:14 PM
by akbar501 on 10/3/14, 9:12 AM
One point that rang true was when she said that you may hit a point where the economics of a specific business don't make sense. IME, the economics of a business often look one way before you start, but become increasingly real as you gain early experience with the business. I'm not sure if she was trying to hint that a pivot discussion needs to happen after the real economics of an idea become known, but that's what I got from this point.
by prostoalex on 10/3/14, 7:01 AM
This seems to be fine in a market with few other competitors, but in heavily contested categories (e.g., SaaS) shouldn't you be multiplying that by customer churn? Seems a bit presumptions to assume that once a customer signs up, they're going to spend 100% of assumed LTV with you and you only.
by kartikkumar on 10/8/14, 7:32 PM
Definitely going to rewatch this lecture soon!
by randomsearch on 10/3/14, 10:36 AM
MOOCs are notorious for fast drop-off in the size of their engaged audience. It will be interesting to see if the same applies to this lecture series (I realise it's not a MOOC!). Perhaps this explains the reduced number of comments.
by andrewchambers on 10/6/14, 1:24 AM